Whooo Me?

I know. I know. A bad pun. But what could I do? And another owl. Are you getting bored with them? I certainly am not. And besides, this owl and the other one in the extra photo, were part of a mini-blipmeet. My brother Steve and I were wandering Big Rock Park in search of the owls. Steve had his "big lens" on so we thought maybe that would jinx the search. And at first that seemed to be true. We were heading home having made a full circuit with no luck, when whom should we meet but MaryJo and Carol aka Legacy. They were also searching for the owls, hoping to repeat my wonderful experience yesterday. So Steve and I decided to join them and head back into the woods instead of going home.

We played my iBird Barred Owl calls but there was no response. We listened for the hissing whistle of the young owls begging to be fed. No such luck. Finally we reached the spot where I had seen the babies yesterday. I played a couple of owl hoots from my iBird including a pair of owls... well... having a good time together... and then I saw a large bird flying right where I'd seen the kids yesterday. We all climbed down the hill to the tree and there was an adult owl. We stopped to photograph him and this is the owl in my main photo. He was very mellow as we crashed around the underbrush and kept taking his photograph. Eventually he flew and we decided not to try to follow.

We walked up to the path and I played the owl hoots one more time. Then we were rewarded with loud calls from "our" owl and another adult owl near where the first one had flown. Down we tramped to the new spot and got a few photos of the second adult. You can see her in the extra. So we have discovered that there are actually four owls in Big Rock Park, two adults and two kids.

Spent much of the rest of the day getting ready for our guests who begin arriving tomorrow night. We'll all be having family and friend fun and then attending the celebration on Sunday afternoon. I am looking forward to having everybody here.